Lessons learned, random rants and fun times in the data world.

Category Archives: Change Management

Organizations, leaders, groups, units, business models, priorities and pretty much everything around you is in a constant state of change. How do you manage to stay on top of things and continue to play a role is helping to shape what the change looks like? Do you think that if you keep your head down and soldier on that you will have any influence on the shape or structure of the new group, leader or business model? Perhaps. But not much, or not where it really counts. You need to speak up, sell yourself, play a role and help shape the next iteration if you will. You have the skills that are needed, you wouldn’t be here otherwise. So what makes you so special? What do you have that will help the NEW (whatever) succeed? How can YOU have any influence on what the next iteration looks like? How can YOU master your destiny?

It’s pretty simple. You need to package and sell your rockstarness. (Okay rockstarness is not really a word but it gets the message across and we love making up new terms). You need to let the people who are accountable for shaping the change know that you have some of the right stuff needed to make this happen and that by including you they will have increased their chances for success! Heck, I’m sure you have a business case already in your head. You see the change beginning to happen and you say to yourself:” I could help with this”, or “I know how to make this work”, or even “I can bring these people together to help make this work”. You might even be losing sleep or feeling some stress because you feel so strongly about your ideas for shaping the new change and are frustrated that you are unable to help.

Package Yourself

Write down the stuff that’s in your head. Package it up. One page should do. Send it to some colleagues or mentors and ask for their feedback. Incorporate their feedback. Make it sing. It’s you in one page. Keep it simple and strategic (if you can). Use common language (please) as the potential for You in One Page to be circulated is there and you want it to resonate with anyone who comes across it. You are now prepared!

Now Sell the Package

Request to meet with the influential leaders who are accountable for the change. Let them know you have some skills that can help them and ask for a brief period of their time to discuss the value you hope to bring to the change. I guarantee they will accept your invite and be very happy to talk with you. After all, they have been tasked with this change and will everything they can to ensure its success. If you can help then all the better for them. And you!

Master your destiny!

No one else is responsible for selling you except for you. Take responsibility for shaping that destiny. If the leaders include you in the change then great! If not, then it’s probably not because of anything you didn’t do. It may be out of their hands due to other factors such as politics, culture or organizational readiness. Whatever the outcome, at the very least you won’t bemoan the fact that you didn’t do everything in your power to participate. But if you don’t, you might just get left behind, and you will have no one to blame but yourself. You are the master of your destiny! Make it happen!

Yesterday I tweeted that I was going to lay low for a bit because I had stirred some things up. Without going in to too much detail, I commented on an internal blog post that referenced a big corporate change that I didn’t believe any real change was going to occur as I had not seen any modeling of the desired behavior.

Well, did that set off a flurry of activity! And of course that was the whole point of my comment right? And I only said what everyone else was thinking, as many people came to thank me. What happened next is that my feedback was publicly acknowledged, I was thanked for speaking out, and I was even asked to help with the change effort.

What I want to know is, have you ever seen this happen? A big change is initiated, there is a robust series of important communications, yet the expected behavior is not modeled for others to follow. I am somewhat surprised that this happens as often as it does. Just do a quick search on google and you will find all kinds of references to instances of this happening. You will also find that in most cases one of the most frequent recommendations for implementing a SUCCESSFUL change, is for the leaders to show others what this change looks like. They need to lead the way by doing what they say they are going to do, and asking others ” how can I help you” ?

This is where my #creative or #insane brain starts to churn. What if our Communications Plan had a section on the modeling of the behaviors? Included would be a description of what the modeled behavior needed to look like, who should do it, how often, what the expected results are and the success measures? Easy peasy.. it’s not rocket science. And then…well who needs a change management plan right? 😉